OK, I was avoiding resetting it electrically, but you convinced me.
Thank you, and thank you, Bill.
And strangely, the moment you convinced me, I rememberer that I have
a couple that I took out of 1975 or so Royal copier machine, that my
job sold me for a dollar in 1983. Very big, very heavy machine.**
It has about 15 Omron relays, including two that latch. MY2K, I think
I saw yesterday.
I'm not sure why this application would require a (self-)latching relay
at all, either mechanically or magnetically latched.
Maybe I should have said why. My new home burglar alarm needs an
accessory to know when the house is getting too cold, like when the
furnace fails. I was thinking that the house would be pretty cold
already, and it would be better if the alarm knew when the oil-burning
furnace failed. That would give whichever friend is in charge of my
house an extra 2 or 3 days to get here and get the heat running. (This
probably won't happen, but I want to be sure. I may drain the pipes
and the toilets, etc.)
When it tries to start and fails, the original design uses a latching
relay that is reset with that famous red button. I had to work on
that once and I think it was a single pole single throw relay. I need
the other pole to be a zone for the burglar alarm. (I"m finally
getting monitoring, because I may be away for 3 months.)
And because often I have no imagination, I just wanted to make it as
much like it was as possible. Also so that for whoever comes over to
reset the furnace, it would look like they are used to.
If you truly need
a latching function, then default's post above is a great way to do it.
It gives you an electrical latching function that is easily reset with
a push button.
You're right. I'll put in a big pushbutton, like on a 1930's front
doorbell, and I'll paint it red. I could even put it on the outside
of the furnace so I could put the cover panels back and they wouldn't
have to move them.
I'm a little reluctant to mess with a pcb that works fine, but 10
years ago the same relay wasn't working, I think. I couldn't find
another that fit*** (In those days I cared if it fit) so I filed the
contact points on the one that was there. I thought it would fail
again in a couple years, but it's been about 10. So I messed with it
all once. I should be able to do this. I guess if I were cold as I
was then, I wouldn't be hesitating.
***A new control board/unit is about 250 dollars, probably more now.)
However, I have worked on a number of furnace controllers for both oil
and gas burners, hot water and hot air, and never encountered one with
any kind of latching function. I'm certainly no expert, but are you
sure you need this?
If it has a red button that I have to push, that pushes something on
the top of the relay, that's a latching relay, right?
**The Royal copier was really hard for me to get home by myself, and I
couldn't have if it didn't come with a table that was about the same
height as my car's trunk. It had about 15 relays and lots of other
parts.
I made about 300 copies with it, but when it broke the second time, by
the time I fixed that problem, something new arose.
ONCE IT WAS BURNING THE PAPER ON THE WAY OUT, SO OF COURSE I UNPLUGGED
IT. i COULDN'T GET IT RUNNING AGAIN. I had bought the service
manual, for only 10 dollars iirc, plus postage, and I spent hours
figuring out how the thing worked, and it TURNED OUT, IT WAS ONE OF
THE LATCHING RELAYS, AND WHEN i UNPLUGGED IT, IT WAS NOT IN THE STATE
FOR STARTTING AGAIN. tHEY HAD NO STARTUP CIRCUIT TO RESET THE TWO
LATCHING RELAYS, IT SEEMS.
I am going to need a new furnace some day, and the people on
alt.home.repair were nice enough to find me an all electronic control
unit with an output that says when the "relay" has tripped.
